Cit­rus schol­ar­ship for young leader

CIT­RUS Aus­tralia has an­nounced a new schol­ar­ship for a young leader in the cit­rus in­dus­try.

The schol­ar­ship, val­ued at about $10,000, in­cludes a three-day course and a trip to the PMA Fresh Sum­mit in the United States.

Cit­rus Aus­tralia chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer Ju­dith Dami­ani said the win­ning can­di­date would demon­strate in­no­va­tion in the grow­ing, pack­ing or mar­ket­ing of cit­rus, and lead­er­ship through their ac­tive par­tic­i­pa­tion in the cit­rus in­dus­try, or who has lead­er­ship ca­pa­bil­ity within their busi­ness.

“In­no­va­tion, maybe the in­tro­duc­tion of new tech­niques that in­crease pro­duc­tion, re­duce wa­ter or spray­ing, or new va­ri­ety de­vel­op­ment,” Ms Dami­ani said.

“Pack­house may be a novel idea that in­creases ef­fi­ciency or pack-out, while mar­ket­ing may be new/novel ways to com­mu­ni­cate with con­sumers or a pack­ag­ing in­no­va­tion.”

J-Tech Sys­tems gen­eral man­ager Cameron McIn­ness said the Emerg­ing Lead­ers schol­ar­ship was prac­ti­cal-based and de­signed to link back to the real-world is­sues of par­tic­i­pants.

“The aim of the schol­ar­ship is to en­cour­age young peo­ple in cit­rus to fur­ther de­velop their skills and knowl­edge and to in­crease the op­por­tu­ni­ties for long-term ca­reers in our in­dus­try,” he said.

“The three-day fully res­i­den­tial for­mat com­prises a mix of ex­pe­ri­en­tial learn­ing ac­tiv­i­ties, a busi­ness simulation, case stud­ies and the ap­pli­ca­tion of learn­ing through team pre­sen­ta­tions to PMA ex­ec­u­tives.

“These ac­tion-learn­ing meth­ods will con­tin­u­ally link back to the par­tic­i­pants’ real-world is­sues and sit­u­a­tions iden­ti­fied in pre-pro­gram goal set­ting dis­cus­sions between each par­tic­i­pant, their man­ager and the pro­gram di­rec­tor.”

The win­ner will be an­nounced at the Cit­rus Tech­ni­cal Fo­rum run­ning from March 1–2 in Mil­dura.

For more in­for­ma­tion on the schol­ar­ship and how to ap­ply, phone Cit­rus Aus­tralia on 03 5023 6333.